Original owner gets his movie rights back

It took all of five minutes Wednesday for a Mexican businessman living in San Antonio to get back the rights to the prequel for the blockbuster film “Passion of the Christ,” which authorities said had been extorted from him by a convicted drug trafficker.

But now the government is going to be embroiled in a legal battle with the businessman over “Mary, Mother of Christ.”

At a hearing in federal court here, Arturo Madrigal, 50, got a default judgment against Jorge Vázquez Sánchez, who he sued last year to negate Vázquez's sale of the script for “Mary, Mother of Christ” to a Hollywood production company and declare Madrigal the sole owner of the movie rights.

U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia granted Madrigal's request after finding Vázquez never responded to the suit and learning from the office of U.S. Attorney Robert Pitman that the government did not have an interest in Madrigal's suit.

With that order, Madrigal and his company, Macri Inc., now say the script is in the hands of Proud Mary Entertainment, currently known as Aloe Entertainment, which paid Vázquez and an alleged accomplice $1 million for the script.

“Our civil suit asked the court to declare the assignment acquired by extortion was invalid, so the rights to the movie come back to Macri Inc.,” said Madrigal's lawyer, Jesse R. Castillo. “It belongs to (Madrigal), not Proud Mary and not the government.”

Reports from Hollywood claim the movie is set to film this year. Houston pastor Joel Osteen came on recently as executive producer, and he has said he was unaware of its ties to Vázquez and another alleged money launderer.

Madrigal — through Macri Inc. — acquired the script from the screenwriter, Benedict Fitzgerald, in 2006 after he defaulted on a $340,000 business loan, an attorney for Fitzgerald told the San Antonio Express-News. Fitzgerald previously co-wrote the screenplay for Mel Gibson's 2004 “Passion of the Christ,” which grossed $610 million worldwide.

Vázquez admitted he and another man, Mauricio Sánchez Garza, had some associates kidnap Madrigal's brother in Mexico and threaten Madrigal so he would sign over his rights to the screenplay.Vázquez sold the screenplay in June 2008 to Proud Mary Entertainment for $1 million, plus a 10 percent cut of the movie's profits. Vázquez admitted he and Sánchez used part of the money — plus drug-trafficking proceeds — to buy 37 acres on San Antonio's Northwest Side for an upscale apartment complex that fell through when feds seized the property.

As part of the plea deal, Vázquez gave up his 10 percent interest in the movie's profits to the U.S. government. In exchange, Vázquez was sentenced to seven years in prison, down from the maximum of 40 years he faced.

The judge's staff made various phone calls to Pitman's office on Wednesday to see if the feds had an interest. When no one appeared for the government, the judge granted Madrigal's motion.

The courts now will have to decide who holds the proper claim to the movie: the government or Madrigal, pitting them as opponents.